I'm the Man: The Story of That Guy from Anthrax Read online

  I’m the Man

  Copyright © 2014 by Scott Ian and Jon Wiederhorn

  Photos courtesy of Scott Ian except where noted

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, Third Floor, Boston, MA 02210.

  Designed by Jack Lenzo

  Set in eleven-point Caslon by The Perseus Books Group

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ian, Scott.

  I’m the man : the story of that guy from Anthrax / Scott Ian with Jon Wiederhorn.

  pages cm

  Includes index.

  ISBN 978-0-306-82335-0 (e-book) 1. Anthrax (Musical group : U.S.) 2. Ian, Scott. 3. Rock musicians--United States--Biography. I. Wiederhorn, Jon. II. Title.

  ML421.A515I26 2014

  782.42166092’2--dc23

  [B]

  2014015428

  Published by Da Capo Press

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  www.dacapopress.com

  Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Pearl and Revel...

  I know what I am and I’ll always be, your reality, is better than I could dream

  All my fears turn from black to white and I’d stand and fight

  the whole world for you...

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword: Enter the Pit, by Kirk Hammett

  Preface

  Chapter 1: I’m the Boy

  Chapter 2: Music Is the Message

  Chapter 3: Rock and Roll All Nite

  Chapter 4: The Birth of Anthrax

  Chapter 5: Replacing Old Parts

  Chapter 6: Watch the Beat!

  Chapter 7: Soldiers of Metal Up Your Ass

  Chapter 8: Fistful of Headaches

  Chapter 9: Turbin Failure

  Chapter 10: Joey Belladonna: Take One

  Chapter 11: Sgt. D Is Coming!

  Chapter 12: A Lesson in Violence

  Chapter 13: The Horror of It All

  Chapter 14: Mublanikcufecin

  Chapter 15: Debauchery & Destruction

  Chapter 16: Euphoria & Despair

  Chapter 17: Starting Over

  Chapter 18: Bring the Noise

  Chapter 19: Tour Highs and Lineup Lows

  Chapter 20: A Bush in the Hand

  Chapter 21: No More Room

  Chapter 22: We Thought You Were Dead!

  Chapter 23: The Last Regret

  Chapter 24: Stomped Out

  Chapter 25: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

  Chapter 26: Volume Fadeout

  Chapter 27: The Perfect Pearl

  Chapter 28: The Other Side of the Mike

  Chapter 29: Total Schism

  Chapter 30: My Kingdom for a Singer

  Chapter 31: Belladonna and the Big 4

  Chapter 32: Rock-a-Bye Baby

  Epilogue

  Index

  Photos

  Graphic Novel

  Acknowledgments

  I have to start with my family, without whom the last fourteen years of my life would have been drastically different.

  Pearl, you make me feel like a superhero every day. Like a bizarro Hulk, “The happier Scott gets, the stronger Scott gets!!!” The power of my love for you is unequaled. We are the betters. I am in love with you. And to Revel, my beautiful boy, my cool dude, my bumblebee (thanks, Pearl) . . . your daddy is so proud of you. I love you. Keep kickin’ ass my man! We are 3, it’s a magic number.

  To Mom, thank you for always caring (aka Jewish mom), and thank you for working your ass off to raise two great kids.

  Dad, you have always been my rock and I wouldn’t be where I am today without you. To Rhea, I couldn’t have asked for a better stepmom and I’m lucky to have you.

  To my brothers, Jason and Sean, you two are the definition of the word mensch. You have always had my back. I love you bros.

  Thank you to my Uncle Mitch for having great taste in music and comics. You opened the door . . .

  To my Aunt Paula and Uncle Stu, real life Mad Men. Your creative/artistic sensibilities definitely rubbed off, and thanks for designing the first Anthrax logo!

  Thank you to the first dudes I ever really jammed with, Neil Stopol and Dave Weiss.

  A million years ago at Bayside High School I heard about a kid who could figure out any song on guitar note perfect. People called him “Beethoven” aka Danny Lilker, and it was with him that our shared dream became a reality. There is no Anthrax without Danny.

  To my other brothers Charlie and Frankie. We are the nucleus, by definition: the central and most important part of an object, movement, or group, forming the basis for its activity and growth. Through all the ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies and peaks and valleys that we’ve faced in our lives together as a band for over thirty years, you have been my Constant. Wow, this is way too serious! I am one lucky motherfucker to have been in a band for over thirty years with you. Look what we fucking did!!! I love youse guys.

  And to my brother, the voice of Anthrax, Joey Belladonna. You opened your mouth in 1984 and with Charlie, Danny, Frankie, and I set the world on fire!!! And the mark we made cut so deep we were able to do it again in 2011 with Worship Music. Nothing but love and respect for you. Here’s to tearing shit up for twenty more years, my friend!

  Rob Caggiano, you gave your blood and sweat just like the rest of us. I am so proud and happy for you. Blow it up, brother!

  John Bush. Thinking back on those times in NYC while writing this book put a huge smile on my face. Sometimes it felt like we were in the trenches but being there with you always made it okay. And to my man Paul Crook, you, sir, are Metal.

  By the way, Jonny Z, thank you for believing. You are truly the godfather of Thrash.

  Huge thanks love and respect to Missi Callazzo, Mike Monterulo, Ed Trunk, and Maria Ferrero for not only being my friends but for going above and beyond.

  To my friends and MVPs who have stepped in and kept the machine running; Joey Vera, Andreas Kisser, Jon Dette, Jason Bittner, Gene Hoglan. Life savers, each and every one of you.

  Respect, thanks and gratitude to all of the crews who have busted their asses for us since 1984. And to our first ever roadie, Joe Allen. Thanks, Doe!!!

  Metallica, Black Sabbath, KISS, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Motörhead, Dio, Pantera. Playing shows with you was and is our privilege. Thank you.

  Who needed drugs when I had Stan Lee, Gene Simmons, and Stephen King. Directly responsible for opening my mind to other worlds than the one I grew up in. I chose this path because of you. Thank you.

  Chuck D. You made a dream come true for me. What we did together will eternally krush. Respect, my brother.

  Thank you to Rick Krim, Bruce Gillmer, and Erik Luftglass for believing in me
and giving me a job when I needed it!

  I had so much fun working on this book with Jon Wiederhorn and my editor, Ben Schafer. Thanks, guys! And thank you to Jim Fitzgerald for kicking ass and to everyone at Da Capo for being so into it.

  To my lifers: Andy Buchanan, Mike Tempesta, John Tempesta, Dominick DeLuca, Zach Throne, Mark Johnson, Marc Paschke, Rich Ross, Whit Crane, Tim McGlinchey, Brian Posehn, David Karon, Matt Hanrahan, Corey Taylor, Joe Trohman. I have to thank Anthrax for putting me in the right place at the right time to meet each of you.

  Thank you to Kirk Hammett for thirty one years of friendship. And for writing the foreword to this book. And for teaching me that no matter how successful you are in life you can still be a nice guy.

  To my friends Cliff, Darrell, Ronnie, and Jeff. I miss you and the honor was all mine.

  I am writing these acknowledgments on Anthrax’s 33rd anniversary. Thirty-three years! In my professional life the fact that I have had this career is the single most important thing to me. I have been able to do what I have always wanted to do with my life, and I get to keep doing it for one reason and one reason only . . .

  You. The fans. All of you. Whether you’ve been with us since day one or you just saw us for the first time playing the Among the Living record at Knebworth, it’s because of you. You, my friends, the kind of people who are willing to look a little deeper and work a little harder to find the music they love. Everything is better if you have to sweat a little bit for it.

  Thanks for sweating with me.

  I love you maniacs.

  Cheers,

  Scott

  Los Angeles, CA

  July 18, 2014

  Thanks to: my parents, Sheldon and Nancy Wiederhorn, my wife, Elizabeth Kaplan, my children, Josh and Chloe, Scott Ian and Pearl Aday, Hap and Miriam Rust, Ben Schafer, Carolyn Sobczak, Lissa Warren and the whole Da Capo team, Al Jourgensen, James Fitzgerald, Matthew Oppenheim, Chris Steffen, Jillian Locke, Katherine Turman, Ian McFarland, Amy and Albert Wilk-Sides, Ken Micallef and Jeff Perlah.

  —Jon Wiederhorn

  Foreword

  Enter the Pit

  By Kirk Hammett

  It all happened in a place so far away from where I had grown up. I was in San Francisco playing in Exodus when I got a call to come out to the East Coast to audition for Metallica. The word was that James and Lars were unhappy with Dave’s drinking and overall performance and wanted him out of the band. Mark Whittaker, who was Exodus’s manager, also happened to be Metallica’s sound guy, so when Mark got wind of Dave’s inevitable exit, he played Exodus’s demo for Lars and James, who both deemed the guy playing the leads on that cassette worthy of an audition. That guy was me.

  When Mark picked me up from the airport I was mortified. There was snow on the ground and I was wearing a denim jacket. Up to this point, I had never been out of California. I only knew that there were other places in the world through movies, maps, and pictures. So what I saw on the way to seedy Jamaica, Queens, was eye-opening to say the least. In San Francisco back then, it was rare to see whole swaths of neighborhoods that bore the decades of crime and filth and waste, but I had never seen such a used-up piece of humanity as I did when we finally got to the place called the Music Building. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t some den of iniquity or sleazy hellhole or anything amusing like that. It was just so rundown and in a totally dilapidated state and boring that the only thing one could do with the building was to rent out whole office spaces to bands, and then proceed to let them do whatever they wanted to do, as long as they paid their rent.

  There were broken windows everywhere, piles of drywall here and there, concrete and rebar sticking out at eye level. Mark told me there were a bunch of Top 40 cover bands and a few metal bands practicing in the building. He said one of the heaviest groups was called Anthrax, and they were a cool bunch of guys. “They gave us a fridge!” he said.

  The space we were renting was on the fifth or sixth floor, and our room was huge, dirty, and empty. There was a smaller, closed-off room in the corner. The only things in the main area were sleeping bags, a bunch of British metal magazines, a scrap heap of egg-carton foam, suitcases, and boxes of booze and food. And a refrigerator. There was broken glass on the floor, of course. And it was cold, thanks to the broken furnace somewhere in the bowels of the building. Mark told me that everyone slept out here in the open space and rehearsed in the room that was closed off. I asked where the other guys were, and Mark pointed in the closed-off room and said, “They’re in there, sleeping.” I looked at my watched and saw that it was 7 p.m.

  Soon after, Cliff walked into the room and I said hi. He said, “Hello, very glad to meet you,” in such a way that immediately revealed how confident he was. Then James and Lars appeared and we exchanged greetings. I had met them both before, but I wasn’t sure if they actually remembered me, due to various circumstances involving alcohol. We talked about my flight, and they asked if I brought any equipment. I had an amp and guitar with me. This was back in the days when you could check anything with the airlines—and I mean anything. I gave the porter $20, he taped a Fragile sticker to my Marshall cabinet, and away it went with me to NYC. It was hilarious watching the cabinet get stuck on the baggage carousel when Mark and I went to pick it up!

  The first time we ever jammed together in the practice room, we spent an hour playing a few Mercyful Fate and Metallica songs. Lars and James kept smiling at each other, which I thought was kind of strange. I figured they either really liked what they were hearing or maybe they were really close in a SF kinda way. But things pretty much clicked from that moment on.

  After we played, we all walked to the liquor store down the street and bought 40-ouncers because it seemed like a good deal economically. This was waaay before 40s became popular. When we got back to the Music Building, the guys showed me how to put egg-carton foam under my sleeping bag to create a lumpy cushion that was a bit more comfortable than sleeping on the cold, bare floor. Not only was there no heating in the place, there wasn’t any hot water, only cold. We drank and tried to stay warm. We listened to metal, talked about metal, and I told them how much I enjoyed playing their songs. Then we passed out.

  The next morning we were awakened by the dull vibration of some band playing in the room down the hall. At first I thought I had died and was in purgatory. Then I opened my eyes and remembered I was at the Music Building with a bunch of guys I barely knew. I looked over at Cliff and saw that he was reading a Dungeons & Dragons Call of Cthulhu role-playing book. Being a big horror fan and well-read in the works of H. P. Lovecraft, I said, “I know that book!”

  He said, “Oh yeah?” which was what he said when he was interested in something.

  I discovered that we could talk in detail about Lovecraft. I was relieved we had something in common besides music. He loved horror movies as well. His all-time fave was George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

  After struggling to put on my shoes in the chest-heaving cold, I wanted to see what this place looked like during the day. I wandered out to the main hall, figuring that one of those metal bands that Mark was talking about was responsible for waking me up. So I went in the direction of the music. As I drew closer, what I heard was definitely metal. It was loud and fast, and the guitar sound was really great! After listening through the door for a while, I headed back down to our room. As I was talking to Cliff, these two guys walked through the door. One was incredibly gawky in a Joey Ramone kind of way, and the other looked like a Jewish version of a wannabe Glenn Tipton. Cliff said, “Hey, these are the guys from Anthrax—this is Scott, and this is Danny.”

  And that was the first time that I heard that gravelly, throaty, slightly devious and mischievous-sounding New Yawk voice of Scott Ian: “Hey, we brought youz guys a toaster oven!”

  That was April 8, 1983, thirty-one years and one day ago as I type this.

  A lot has changed since then. But
what hasn’t changed is my relationship with Scott. From meeting him that cold morning in the Music Building to hanging out with him very recently at Fear FestEvil in San Francisco, I’ve always appreciated and marveled at our friendship. Even though we grew up on opposite sides of the country, we share a lot of the same sensibilities and interests. We also happen to share the same sick sense of humor that we still bond over all these years later.

  From the very beginning I could see that Scott has a humongous, Godzilla-sized heart. He always has time for everyone, whether you are friend, fan, or foe. In a sense, to me he emulated some of the heroes he read about in those comic books we use to read way back in the eighties. He was definitely a people person, in direct contrast to myself being quite introverted. It was healthy for me to hang out with him. I observed how confident he appeared, and he was always very welcoming in social situations. I’ll never forget, after many days with no access to hot water in the Music Building, how he convinced these girls he knew to let us take advantage of their health club account so we could use the locker rooms to shower in!

  Scott helped me come out of my shell a little bit. I was so shy back then, and watching Scott in action in social situations taught me how to conduct myself a little better when I found myself in similar circumstances.

  It was good to have Scott as an ally on the East Coast. Actually, all the guys in Anthrax were quite friendly, and we hung out a lot. Every time we were in their area, you could count on all of us meeting up, and craziness would ensue. What’s funny is that back then those guys weren’t fully realized drinkers like we were. When we came around with various bottles of vodka in tow, we never really noticed that they drank maybe one drink to our four or five! But they were entertained by our belligerent antics and were glad to join in when it looked fun. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if Scott was drunk or just high on life, which I think he often is. I admire his state of mind; I envy it, to be honest.